Entrepreneur Sara Tye has been awarded the Lifetime of Achievement Award at the South West Business and Community Awards for her outstanding contribution to the region.
A multi-award-winning entrepreneur, top 500 PR, coach, speaker, adopted mother and 70.3 triathlete, Sara has an impressive portfolio of work and community involvement projects that spans 37 years. Her passion for charity work, the environment and social responsibility led her to found redheadPR, an agency that works with charities, NGOs, social enterprises and not-for-profits.
The awards are in their fourth year. The Great British Expos, who run the event, added this ceremony to their ever-expanding repertoire in a bid to further shine a spotlight on SMEs across the UK, and are celebrating their 10th anniversary this year.
The Lifetime Of Achievement Award is one of 13 categories and recognises individuals, businesses or charities who have made an outstanding contribution to the South West region in their area of activity or expertise. This year, the group hosted the awards virtually. An independent panel of judges will consider each candidate’s local impact on their community, the nominee’s history, their plans for 2020/2021, any personal testimonies or stories that come with the nominations, and their achievements to date.
The judges said: “Sara has a massive amount of experience in a number of fields. Sara works with companies across the globe helping them to progress and grow. She is also an integral part of her local community.”
Sara’s career spans 37 years, with incredible contribution not only to the communities of the South West town of Swindon in Wiltshire but across the globe.
She was a finalist in the first Cosmopolitan Women of the Year Awards 1999 and has a multimillion-pound property portfolio in and outside London. Since returning to Swindon in 2008, she has been heavily involved with the local community, having worked with Swindon’s Mayor, the late Rex Barnett, in 2013, when she helped raise £100,000 for three chosen charities. As the chair of Swindon Triathlon Club, she helped the club win the first-ever British Triathlon Accreditation in the South West, the TriMark Club Bronze, and she was chair of the renewal project and patron of the town’s iconic Christ Church.
These contributions to the region won her the Wiltshire Business Person of the Month Award in 2014 and got her shortlisted in the South West Business and Community Awards in 2017, for the Female Entrepreneur of The Year Award. Outside of this, she has successfully built two PR agencies, running PR communications programmes for multiple international brands such as Nokia and Camitz Sparkling Vodka. She was voted ‘Green PR of London’ by the Evening Standard and helped develop The Make Your Mark for a Tenner campaign, commended as one of the CIPR’s best sustainable PR programmes.
In June 2020, she launched Mastering Your Own PR. This programme has helped many solo entrepreneurs across the globe pivot their businesses online by educating them on the building blocks of successful PR and social media programmes through a free workshop and mentorship session.
Upon winning the Lifetime of Achievement Award 2021, Sara said: “I am so proud to win this award 37 years on from when I started my career, charity work and community involvement. A lifetime achievement award is the hardest to be awarded. It’s been enduring, amazing and a huge roller-coaster. I have had a huge amount of support along the way. People that trusted me and my very risky decisions at times. I have had to keep fit, continually learn, be empathetic, give so much and step back when sometimes I found that hard. I am truly blessed.”
You can find out more information on Sara Tye, redheadPR or the Mastering Your Own PR programme via https://www.myopr.co.uk/
If you require an interview or more photos then contact pr@redheadPR.co.uk